The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton Part 20

"Mr. Cowper," he said, "there are reasons why I find it very hard to deny you anything, but as regards those three beans, you will neither eat one nor even hold it in your hand. Sit down and I will tell you a story which sounds as though it might have happened a thousand years ago. It happened within the last three months. Listen."

Burton told his story with absolute sincerity. The professor listened with intense interest. It was perhaps strange that, extraordinary though it was, he never for one moment seemed to doubt the truth of what he heard. When Burton had finished, he rose to his feet in a state of great excitement.

"This is indeed wonderful," he declared. "It is more wonderful, even, than you can know of. The legend of the perfect food appears in the ma.n.u.scripts of many centuries. It antedates literature by generations.

There is a tomb in the interior of j.a.pan, sacred to a saint who for seventy years worked for the production of this very bean. That, let me tell you, was three thousand years ago. My young friend, you have indeed been favored!"

"Let me understand this thing," Burton said, anxiously. "Those pages say that if one eats a green leaf after the bean, the change wrought in one will become absolutely permanent?"

"That is so," the professor a.s.sented. "Now all that you have to do, is to eat a green leaf from the little tree. After that, you will have no more need of those three beans, and you can therefore give them to me."

Burton made no attempt to produce his little silver box.

"First of all," he said, "I must test the truth of this. I cannot run any risks. I must go and eat a leaf. If in three months no change has taken place in me, I will lend you a bean to examine. I can do no more than that. Until this matter is absolutely settled, they are worth more than life itself to me."

Mr. Cowper seemed annoyed.

"Surely," he protested, "you are not going to ask me to wait three months until I can examine one of these?"

"Three months will soon pa.s.s," Burton replied. "Until that time is up, I could not part with them."

"But you can't imagine," the professor pleaded, "how marvelously interesting this is to me. Remember that I have spent all my life digging about among the archives and the literature and the superst.i.tions of these pre-Egyptian peoples. You are the first man in the world, outside a little circle of fellow-workers, to speak to me of this perfect food. Your story as to how it came into your hands is the most amazing romance I have ever heard. It confirms many of my theories. It is wonderful. Do you realize what has happened? You, sir, you in your insignificant person," the professor continued, shaking his finger at his visitor, "have tasted the result of thousands of years of unceasing study. Wise men in their cells, before Athens was built, before the Pyramids were conceived, were thinking out this matter in strange parts of Egypt, in forgotten parts of Syria and Asia. For generations their dream has been looked upon as a thing elusive as the philosopher's stone, the trans.m.u.tation of metals--any of these unsolved problems. For five hundred years--since the days of a Russian scientist who lived on the Black Sea, but whose name, for the moment, I have forgotten--the whole subject has lain dead. It is indeed true that the fairy tales of one generation become the science of the next. Our own learned men have been blind. The whole chain of reasoning is so clear.

Every article of human food contains its separate particles, affecting the moral as well as the physical system. Why should it have been deemed necromancy to endeavor to combine these parts, to evolve by careful elimination and change the perfect food? In the house, young man, which you have told me of, there died the hero of the greatest discovery which has ever been made since the world began to spin upon its...o...b..t."

"Will Miss Edith be back to-morrow?" Burton asked.

The professor stared at him.

"Miss Edith?" he repeated. "Oh! my daughter? Is she not in?"

"She is away for two days, your servant told me," Burton replied.

"Perhaps so--perhaps so," the professor agreed. "She has gone to her aunt's, very likely, in Chelsea. My sister has a house there in Bromsgrove Terrace."

Burton rose to his feet. He held out his hand for the ma.n.u.script.

"I am exceedingly obliged to you," he said. "Now I must go."

The professor gripped the ma.n.u.script in his hand. He was no longer a harmless and benevolent old gentleman. He was like a wild animal about to be robbed of its prey.

"No," he cried. "You must not take these away. You must not think of it. They are of no use to you. Leave me the sheets, just as they are.

I will go further back. There are several words at the meaning of which I have only guessed. Leave them with me for a few days, and I will make you an exact translation."

"Very well," Burton a.s.sented.

"And one bean?" the professor begged. "Leave me one bean only? I promise not to eat it, not to dissect it, not to subject it to experiments of any sort. Let me just have it to look at, to be sure that what you have told me is not an hallucination."

Burton shook his head.

"I dare not part with one. I am going straight back to test the leaf theory. If it is correct, I will keep my promise. And--will you remember me to Miss Edith when she returns, professor?"

"To Miss Edith? Yes, yes, of course," Mr. Cowper declared, impatiently. "When shall you be down again, my young friend?" he went on earnestly. "I want to hear more of your experiences. I want you to tell me the whole thing over again. I should like to get a signed statement from you. There are several points in connection with what you say, which bear out a favorite theory of mine."

"I will come in a few days, if I may," Burton a.s.sured him.

The professor walked with his guest to the front door. He seemed reluctant to let him go.

"Take care of yourself, Mr. Burton," he enjoined. "Yours is a precious life. On no account subject yourself to any risks. Be careful of the crossings. Don't expose yourself to inclement weather. Keep away from any place likely to harbor infectious disease. I should very much like to have a meeting in London of a few of my friends, if I could ensure your presence."

"When I come down again," Burton promised, "we will discuss it."

He shook hands and hurried away. In less than an hour and a half he was in Mr. Waddington's rooms. The latter had just arrived from the office.

"Mr. Waddington," Burton exclaimed, "the little tree on which the beans grew--where is it?"

Mr. Waddington was taken aback.

"But I picked all the beans," he replied. "There were only the leaves left."

"Never mind that!" Burton cried. "It is the leaves we want! The tree--where is it? Quick! I want to feel myself absolutely safe."

Mr. Waddington's face was blank.

"You have heard the translation of those sheets?"

"I have," Burton answered hastily. "I will tell you all about it directly--as soon as you have brought me the tree."

Mr. Waddington had turned a little pale.

"I gave it to a child in the street, on my way home from Idlemay House,"

he declared. "There was no sign of any more beans coming and I had more than enough to carry."

Burton sank into a chair and groaned.

"We are lost," he exclaimed, "unless you can find that child! Our cure is only temporary. We need a leaf each from the tree. I have only eight months and two weeks more!"

Mr. Waddington staggered to a seat. He produced his own beans and counted them eagerly.

"A little under eleven months!" he muttered. "We must find the tree!"

CHAPTER XV

THE PROFESSOR INSISTS

Crouched over his writing table, with sheets of ma.n.u.script on every side of him, Burton worked like a slave at his novel. After a week devoted by Mr. Waddington and himself to a fruitless search for the missing plant, they had handed the matter over to a private detective and Burton had settled down to make the most of the time before him. Day after day of strange joys had dawned and pa.s.sed away. He had peopled his room with shadows. Edith had looked at him out of her wonderful eyes, he had felt the touch of her fingers as she had knelt by his side, the glow which had crept into his heart as he had read to her fragments of his story and listened to her words of praise. The wall which he had built stood firm and fast. He lived in his new days. Life was all foreground, and hour by hour the splendid fancies came.

It was his first great effort at composition. Those little studies of his, as he had pa.s.sed backwards and forwards through the streets and crowded places, had counted for little. Here he was making serious demands upon his new capacity. In a sense it was all very easy, all very wonderful, yet sometimes dejection came. Then his head drooped upon his folded arms, he doubted himself and his work, he told himself that he was living in a fool's Paradise--a fool's Paradise indeed!